A Trail Behind
by Sullen Siren
Summary: Angel's left a trail of dead loves behind him.


Title: A Trail Behind  
Author: Sullen Siren (adena (at) direcway (dot) com)  
Summary: Angel's left a trail of dead loves behind him.  
Spoilers: Up through the current seasons "Shells"  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy, Joss, Fox, etc. Not me. Never me.  
Notes: Written for musesfool's "Two Line Challenge.  Song lines were Pearl Jam's Nothingman. "Caught a bolt of lightnin'/Cursed the day he let it go."

**A Trail Behind**

_"Caught a bolt of lightnin'/cursed the day he let it go."_

_ - Pearl Jam, Nothingman_

His arms still felt empty, now.  Everyday.  He looked up from the too-large and too-expensive desk whenever someone entered without knocking, half-hoping to see someone he'd never see again.

He was beginning to love the interruptions, the chaos, and the noise that made up their lives.  Because in the silent moments his mind ran over all that he had lost.  And the numbers grew day, by day, by day until sometimes he felt he was drowning in the voices of the dead and lost.  He wished that he knew how to find joy, or even feign it, as Spike did.  But he didn't.  He just survived, fought, kept going.  He'd tried too hard to regain hope, but as those he considered his fell one by one these days, he'd lost that again and not reached to reclaim it.  Hope only hurt worse when it was gone.

He missed the way she shone even when it was dark, the way she was irreverent in the face of danger, the way she dressed for looks before practicality.  He missed the Buffy that had once been.  He missed the Buffy that lived now too, though he didn't think he knew her.

He missed her smile, her habit of spending more than she could afford, and her ability to summarize everything into short statements.  He missed the perfume she'd always worn, and the laughter that had always hidden behind her teasing.  He missed her wit and her bravery.  He missed Cordelia.  

He missed the way she'd moved, and the way he couldn't tell the difference between laughter and danger in her eyes.  He missed knowing that she was out there.  He missed when he could hate her without a strange slash of sorry.  He missed Darla.

He missed her endless questions, and the way she'd pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose when they fell forward.  He missed the way she'd speak on and on about things as foreign to him as daylight, never realizing that he – and most everyone else – never had any idea what she was speaking of.  He missed Fred.

He missed them all.  The endless litany of women – and some men – that he'd wronged and lost over the years.  Some came back, most did not.  Those that did he would usually rather have stayed gone.  Above them all he missed one.  The one he'd let go.  He missed Conner.

He missed the smiling baby he'd held, the one that had loved him without concern, without requirements or reservations.  And he missed the angry, bitter young man who had looked at him through the eyes of one who had known horror.  When Conner had been here, his purpose had been as clear as flashes of lightning in a thunderstorm.  All around him the world had raged and rained, but he had Conner.  Conner was his purpose, and his focus.

In the end, he'd failed.  He knew that.  Conner had been broken, and he hadn't fixed him.  He had cheated, and perhaps sold his soul and everyone else's in the process.  He flinched sometimes, when conversations turned to places where Conner's name should be said, but wasn't.  Sometimes that hurt worse.  He'd erased the boy from their lives like a useless file.  Fred died never remembering that she'd helped rock him to sleep, back when she still wrote on walls.  Wesley remembered only the anger and pain of that time – he'd forgotten that it had been because he wanted to save the boy from Angel.  (And Angel had long since forgiven him for that.  It had been done with good intentions, he believed that.  He knew now the lengths Wesley would go to protect those he loved.)

He found her in the same cheap room, poorly drawn tattoos covering the parts of her body he could see beneath the worn sweatshirt she wore.  Her eyes widened when he pushed the door open and walked inside.  "You can't!  I didn't invite you!"

"You don't live here, Eve.  You just hide here.  And I've been here before.  Remember?"

Her eyes were hunted and afraid.  "What are you doing here?  What do you want?  Have you . . . heard anything?  About Lindsey?"

"No.  And unless it was a nice filmstrip about him being prodded with hot pokers, I don't want to hear anything."

She flinched at the imagery.  "Then why are you here?"

He sat heavily on the bed beside her, ignoring the way she backed away from him.  When her eyes slinked toward the door he smiled faintly.  "Don't try it.  You'd never make it before I stopped you."  Her shoulders sagged and she stood, resigned, and waiting for whatever came next.

He studied her a moment and then said simply.  "I want to talk."

"About what?  Fred?  I don't know anything beside what I told you.  You need to find-"

"The deeper well.  I know.  No.  This isn't about Fred.  Fred's gone."

Something that might have been regret flickered over her face.  "Oh.  Well then what?"

"I want to talk about Conner."

Wariness returned in full.  "I don't know anything about him.  I just know what the senior partners told me."

"No.  I want to talk.  You get to listen."

She frowned, not understanding.  "Why?"

"Because you're the only one who can."

Realization crossed her face.  "You must . . . miss him?  He was there, a part of you.  He loved you.  And then he was gone.  Because you didn't help him."

He nodded.  "I miss him.  But don't make the mistake of thinking we're alike.  Lindsey didn't love you.  He used you, Eve.  One day you're going to realize that, and it's going to rip you apart.  And I'm not going to care.  But in the meantime, you can listen.  Sit."

She sat sullenly in a threadbare, rickety chair opposite him and listened as a vampire began to talk about the son he'd let go.


End file.
